A project-delivery method that reduced freeway construction time by nearly a year, a potential game-changer in recycling port-dredged material, and a temporary Interstate bridge structure that improved motorist and worker safety were the first recipients of the TransOvation Awards.

The American Road & Transportation Builders Association Transportation Development Foundation (ARTBA-TDF) selected five private-sector firms and two public agencies for its inaugural TransOvation Awards, which honor “innovative transportation infrastructure-related products, services, technologies and techniques introduced over the past five years that can be documented to provide a high return on investment by: improving transportation safety; saving transportation users and taxpayers time and/or money; or making our transportation infrastructure more environmentally sustainable.”

Awards were presented at a banquet during ARTBA’s TransOvation Workshop & Exhibit, held at Lansdowne Resort & Conference Center in Leesburg, VA.

Using an innovative contracting method known as “Construction Manager General Contract” (CMGC) and risk management strategies, UDOT and its contractor, Copper Hills Constructors -- a joint venture of Granite, Kiewit, and W.W. Clyde -- were able to deliver the 35-mile Mountain View Corridor a year ahead of schedule and at reduced cost to taxpayers.

The CMGC process was guided by transparency and open-book estimating, collaborative risk management, and solution-oriented decision making. It helped reduce estimated construction costs by $110 million, or nearly a third of initial estimates. That cost savings and flexibility allowed the agency to add five miles of paved roadway to the corridor project and work was completed nearly a year ahead of schedule.

The Lane Construction Corporation found an innovative way to protect workers and the traveling public while accelerating the construction schedule during the widening of eight miles of Interstate-85 in Cabarrus County, NC.

The majority of the new roadway width will be constructed within the existing 70-foot median, resulting in a very difficult access challenge and posing serious safety risk. Utilizing construction materials that Lane recovered and recycled from other projects, the company created a unique temporary bridge structure over the interstate with access ramps into the median work zone. This bridge connects the worksite on both sides of the highway with the median area, while separating construction vehicles from passenger cars and eliminating the need to haul 40,000 loads of material through heavy interstate traffic.

With increased efficiency and an accelerated pace, construction is scheduled to be completed 11 months earlier than specified, at a price $8.5 million less than the original engineering estimate.

Schnabel Engineering completed a breakthrough study on sustainable reuse of dredge material (DM) for the MPA demonstrating for the first time that blending of DM from Cox Creek in Baltimore Harbor with steel slag fines, another waste material, could produce an environmentally safe earth fill suitable for construction of highways, pavements, embankments and other commercial needs.

The findings will likely have major consequences for the dredging, design and construction of America’s ports and harbors and may help reduce or eliminate the need for additional dredge disposal sites.